


Shoestrings

by Madame_Klancealot



Series: Soulmate AU [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 04:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18328628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madame_Klancealot/pseuds/Madame_Klancealot
Summary: Lance's layover at the airport has been delayed by an hour making him think about his stupid soulmate mark, and how he'll never want to meet his soulmate with the words etched onto his skin.





	Shoestrings

**Author's Note:**

> First time trying out the Soulmate AU. Don't know much about it besides reading a couple fics and seeing a couple fanarts, but this fic came to mind while waiting at the airport a couple days ago. Hope it's worth a little read. :)

_Shoes._ Why did it have to be shoes, Lance thought when he looked at the palm of his hand with the mark etched on to it, a low breath of frustration leaving his mouth. His flight was delayed by an hour during his layover, resting on a single bench staring at the screen with blue eyes of hatred.

 

Shoes. Of course it had to be about shoes. Why couldn’t it be something cool like an undying confession of love, or something about how cool he was, or that he looked devastatingly handsome. No, because with him, his long awaited soulmate mark, it had to be about shoes. Lance looked at his mark with an intensity and thought that it was so, plain. So boring, not like him at all. Shouldn’t marks have something to do with both personalities? What did shoes have to do with Lance? He had absolutely no specific reasons to like shoes.

 

As his ocean blue eyes fell from the screen, he looked past his long legs hugging a pair of light blue skinny jeans to gawk at his white _Adidas_ kicks. Ever since that day, a week ago while he was on vacation at his Abuela and Abuelo’s home in Cuba, he woke up to light blue glow and a warm, fuzzy feeling on his right palm. It was a glow he recognized instantaneously. 

 

He remembered how excited he was to finally receive his soulmate mark, knowing that within the next month his soulmate would find him, and say the exact same words etched onto his skin.

 

A grim look found Lance’s face at the thought of his soulmate’s first words to him. He was still hung up on the fact that it was about shoes. Lance felt he was of the eccentric type, a person who would deserve a soulmate as daring and outgoing as him. He thought the mark would have words like; _Wow,_ _You’re gorgeous;_ _I have always been in love with you_ ; _Dayum, where have you been all my life?_. But no, his words were about his shoes, or better yet, a shoe.

 

All this thinking about shoes made Lance thirsty, so he decided to grab his blue backpack and roam the airport till he found a shop with something to quench his thirst. But first, he had to check his shoes, check if they were all tied up.

 

Ever since his mark appeared, he had felt a slight grudge towards it. Always checking if his shoes were tied so that his soulmate wouldn’t find him. He wouldn’t let a boring mark like his have the upper hand. He would beat the system and find a person whose first words to him would not have anything to do with boring shoes. Selfishly enough, he felt like he deserved something better than the words etched onto his palm.

 

In the distance between the masses of busy people trying to reach their gates, Lance saw a lonely Dr. Pepper cooling off in a fridge at one of the kiosks close by. He darted over to grab it. Just as his hand reached for the cold beverage, a pale hand took it right out of his sight, he didn’t have a shot of grabbing it. Anger flaring up in his throat, he turned to see whose face the pale hand belonged to, but it was gone without a trace, his kidnapped beverage already paid for and lost in sight.

 

Losing the chance to buy his favorite beverage, he settled for a water something as boring as his own mark. He felt helpless, tired and unlucky at the moment in the middle of a mediocre airport in the middle of the country longing to come home already to his family.

 

He caught a quick glance at his hand, then back at his shoes. Still tied up, all nice and tight with two fine bows looking like rabbits’ ears. The time on his watch hardly budged since he last checked it feeling the slowness of time seeping into him usually during a layover.

 

He felt a tug in his gut like someone was watching him or following him, but it was just his bladder calling for a release. Might as well find a restroom before boarding his flight, Lance thought finding the nearest one in his vicinity. Walking in front of him, he noticed black silky hair swooshing from side to side. It wasn’t hard to come across in the masses of people walking to and from in the airport hallways. Lance didn’t think people his age wore mullets anymore, but the boy in front of him was dressed so stylish that he had to have a face that would suit the old-fashioned hairdo, he thought still staring at the swooshing cowlick.

 

Lance wanted to see his face. From behind he could make out that the boy was wearing a black leather jacket, and tall leather Doc Martens with dark gray skinny jeans tucked tightly into them. His black satchel was slung over his shoulders and when he looked to the side all Lance could catch of his face was a pair of large black sunglasses, the lights from the ceiling reflecting off of it. He felt annoyed that he couldn’t make out his face because of the sunglasses. Who even wore sunglasses inside an airport, he thought.

 

As he made his way into the restroom, he noticed that every single stall was occupied building even more annoyance up inside his body as a fiery heat urging to be released into a roaring fire. This day was not going well and he wanted to blame it all on his stupid soulmate mark. Something he knew would be ridiculous because the mark didn’t do anything to him, it just appeared, that was its only job. And it would stay there until his soulmate finally decided to say those exact words to him.

 

While he waited for a free toilet, he stole another glance at the tiny words visible in his palm. He remembered the day it showed up how disappointed he felt reading the words out loud to himself. His mother and father had his dream words, words that would have suited him so much more than the words he was looking at right now.

 

Still lost in thought feeling jealousy rising in his gut, the door to one of the stalls opened in a haste. When he made his way over he noticed a boy with raven black hair spilling out, a Dr. Pepper bottle in his hand. He was the culprit, Lance thought eyeing the soda he was quenching for earlier. His blue eyes trailed from the soda bottle in the boy’s hand and up to his pale face, large black sunglasses covering half his face.

 

Surprise found Lance when he took in the same boy he saw earlier walking in front of him. His hidden face looking straight at him spilling out of the bathroom stall. Embarrassed by his antsy dance to relieve himself he hastily took over the stall to let the black haired boy leave.

 

Once Lance was finished with his business, the boy with the large sunglasses and his all black ensemble was gone. Lance felt a small pang in his chest, but he knew he couldn’t think about his soulmate at the moment, he was trying to luck out of his insolent mark.

 

The speakers in the restroom crinkled, a usual muffled voice through the speaker sounding, “Attention all passengers, boarding has begun for Flight GF-337 to Los Angeles. Can all passengers with the seat numbers 1-15 come to the front desk immediately for check in.”

 

Her voice repeated the same sentence while Lance washed his hands, his eyes growing wide with realization when he took in the flight number the woman repeated. It was his flight and last he checked, his seat number was 7A, he had to run.

 

There wasn’t time to dry off his hands as he sprinted out of the restroom and ran towards gate 19. He looked to the side and saw a large yellow number 3 on the wall, he picked up his pace to reach his gate. Not that far in front of him while sprinting, he noticed a familiar black hairdo running almost as fast as him. Could it be the Dr. Pepper snatcher? He shook his head, knowing he didn’t have time to think about cute boys who dressed well and soulmates. He had a plane to catch.

 

He was an amazing sprinter in highschool so his pace went past the black haired boy within seconds, a large yellow number 19 becoming clear in his view. The line had stretched out a fair length letting Lance know he wouldn’t have missed his flight if he had turned down his speed a few notches, but better safe than sorry his mother always told him.

 

Behind him in the line, people were lining up quickly, the black haired boy he thought about moments ago and saw running was out of his sight again. The chances for him to be on the same flight as Lance would be slim pickings, but a boy could only hope. Still, how could a nicely dressed, rocker boy be his soulmate? He would have definitely already found his soulmate, or have a cool first words to his soulmate like; _Hey, baby you rock my world_ , or _I want to swim in your eyes,_ or, and this was Lance’s favorite, _Is this seat taken?_ Something as simple as a question to sit next to their soulmate making it the ultimate meet-cute was Lance’s dream, but no. His mark flashed in his peripheral vision being the hand that was holding his boarding ticket. A disappointed click sounded loudly from his tongue as he reached the flight attendant to give her his boarding ticket.  

 

“Have a nice flight, sir.” The flight attendant took his ticket, ripping the top edge handing it back to him, a pleasant smile on her face.

 

 _Yeah, sure, whatever,_ Lance thought just wanting to get home so that he could sulk in his room again dreading the day his soulmate would show up and say those words to him. He knew how much of a baby he was acting when it came to his mark, but everyone he knew had awesome first words. For him, for Lance McClain, their star runner at his high school, he was expected to have an awesome mark. But this, he couldn’t show his friends at school this mark.

 

He found his seat, sitting down by the window pushing his backpack in under the seat in front of him. Once everything was settled in for him, belt buckled, sleeping pills popped, he pulled his blue noise-cancelling headphones up to his ears to deafen out the entire flight, music blaring in his ears helping his eyes grow heavy and at last falling asleep.

 

Lance woke with a sudden jolt as a small turbulence hit the plane. His eyes gradually opened to catch the time on his watch. Over halfway through the flight. He stared out the window, darkness taking over the entire sky, and inside the plane indicating that the passengers should sleep now.

 

He still felt sleepy due to the sleeping pills he popped before they took off, but he couldn’t go back to sleep until he saw whose head had fallen onto his shoulder. There was a distinct smell of flowers tickling his nose when he tipped his blue gaze down to a crown of black, silky hair resting gently on his shoulder. The sunglasses were gone, finally, and Lance was shocked to see that the well-dressed rocker boy from earlier, who snatched his beloved Dr. Pepper, was out like a light on Lance’s shoulder.

 

For once, he felt like luck was on his side. He really wanted to wake the boy up and say his first words to him, wishing he was his soulmate but he knew they were on a plane, and what would planes have to do with shoes? Instead, he took in the boy’s face now that his large sunglasses were gone.

 

His eyes were of course closed, since he was sound asleep, but Lance could only guess that he had beautiful eyes, dark ones, he thought. His lips were defined, a cute cupid’s bow traced finely on the top of his lips. Nose slightly slanted, but otherwise long and slim. His cheeks were tinged red on the balls of his cheeks. Lance felt like pinching them to make them even redder.

 

Sleep was threatening to find Lance again, so he took a mental picture of the sleeping soda snatcher and fell back into dreamland where he could have said his first words to him that didn’t have anything to do with boring shoes.  

 

“May I have your attention, please? We will be landing in Los Angeles in less than ten minutes. Please make sure you have your belongings, and that you are buckled up for landing. Thank you for flying with us and we hope you had a pleasant flight.”

 

Lance heard through his noise cancelling headphones. He was contemplating on suing the company who sold them for not working properly. Music still blared in his ears when he finally stretched himself awake and looked out the window to take in his home, ignoring the cute rocker sitting next to him.

 

The plane finally lands with a bumping thump on the runway, and in minutes, everyone is going crazy to be the first one to get off the plane. People, always in such a hurry, calm down you don’t need to find your soulmate, your soulmate will find you. It will all click into place when the time's right. Except, Lance didn’t want his right time to come, he wanted his right time to not come in a long, long time.

 

He found his blue backpack, having it at the ready then taking in the black haired boy next to him wearing the exact same headphones as him but in the color red. His sunglasses were still off, gifting Lance the chance to take in the boy’s eyes when their stares met.

 

Beautiful, Lance thought, a stinging pain of jealousy finding his heart when he was positive that this boy’s soulmate had cool first words waiting for him. He smiled at the boy then looked away quickly, hoping he’d never have to see him again in his life.

 

Lance and the boy stand up to walk out of the plane. When they both make it to the long hallway to walk to the arrivals section of LAX, he tried to quickly pass the black haired boy without looking at him. While he passed the boy, he felt a sudden thud hit the floor behind him. His backpack had for some odd reason fallen off his back. The black haired boy pulled his red headphones down, as did Lance so that he could thank him when he bent down to pick up his backpack for him.

 

The black haired boy grabbed the fallen backpack, but made a weird look at Lance’s feet. Lance looked down to see what he was looking at. The boy pointed to his white shoe and tipped his beautiful face up to Lance to say, “Your shoe’s undone.” In a monotone, bored voice.

 

Lance felt irritated that he used so much time and effort to keep his shoes tied that he noticed the laces on the black haired boy’s Doc Martens were undone too. He pointed irritatingly at the boy’s black boot. “ _Your_ shoe’s undone.” Lance said in a mocking tone.

 

Both boys had mirrored, shocked looks on their faces. The black haired boy stood quickly up from the floor, handing Lance back his backpack. “What did you say!?” Both boys said in unison, pointing to each other.

 

They both smiled sheepishly, looking fondly at each other. “Well, would you look at that.” Lance smiled brightly, holding out his marked hand, “I’m Lance.” He said.

 

The black haired boy took Lance’s hand with his own marked hand, the same words as Lance etched onto it, “Keith.” He said in a low, raspy voice, an embarrassed smile finding his face.

 

When their hands linked, a warm purple glow shined brightly gently burning away their marked words about shoes. Soulmates. They had found each other.

 

Keith fell in step with Lance to go find their baggage, he pointed down to Lance’s shoe, cocking a thick black brow, “Aren’t you going to tie it?” He asked.

 

And for once, ever since Lance received his dull mark, looking at his soulmate, he said, “I think I’m going to leave it untied for a while.”

 

“Fine, don’t blame me if you trip.” Keith replied giving him an incredulous look, but a soft smile instantly warming his face.

 

Lance’s mouth spread wide with happiness when he said, “I don’t mind, looks like I’ve already fallen.”  


End file.
